


soothe

by neville



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Fluff, M/M, Panic Attacks, Recovery, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trans Bruce Banner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neville/pseuds/neville
Summary: In which Asgard isn't destroyed, and Bruce Banner only wakes up from being the Hulk when it's all over.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Thor
Comments: 3
Kudos: 95





	soothe

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in the middle of the night so i hold no claims to its quality - but i hope y'all like it :)

Bruce wakes up naked in Asgard and Thor picks him up from the floor and soothes in his ear that he’s glad to see him again. 

  
  


Bruce almost has a panic attack when Thor says  _ two years _ , can feel it crawling up through his chest, cutting off his lungs: then Thor is holding him, hands firm on his shoulders, telling him he’s okay. He’s okay. His feet are on the floor and he’s breathing in and he’s right here. 

“What about my life?” Bruce asks, and Thor touches his face for a moment, and makes him breathe a little longer. Bruce does not feel okay, even as Thor repeats that he is. He feels trapped in the void of the two years he’s lost; the world will be new and everyone will have moved on and he barely even knows where he is, and the roaring of the uncertainty in his ears is  _ so loud _ . 

Thor puts his arms around Bruce and rubs his back and counts his breaths for him. Thor is warm. 

  
  


Bruce could get used to Asgard. He  _ has _ to, actually, first; its battle with Ragnarok means that it’s in a state of being rebuilt. The worries he has about other people on Earth begin to slide away from him; it no longer seems to feel important whether or not Tony looked for him or if Natasha still likes him (or if he, even, liked her and wasn’t just being performative). He helps with the efforts where his own small body can; most of this work is on the farms, and he helps Thor’s rebuilding plans where he can. Thor has developed something of a strong interest in reducing the power of Asgard’s monarchy. 

“It feels as if everyone is looking up to me,” he says to Bruce one morning, bathed in the glory of the light refracted gold through the windows, “when there are other people who are just as important.” He pauses. “Or do you think I’m just trying to avoid responsibility?”

“I think you’ve been on Earth too long,” Bruce teases lightly. Thor laughs. 

“I like your silly planet,” he says. 

Thor finds the time, every now and then, to find Bruce. Often, he brings things with him: mostly food, strange fruits grown in Asgard that seem both familiar and not, and they’ll sit together and eat and tell each other their worries until Bruce’s begin to fade and Thor’s go from professional to personal as he gets more comfortable. Thor puts his hand on top of Bruce’s. 

  
  


Bruce has another panic attack, and cannot explain to Thor as he paces around in nervous self-implosion that he often cannot find the reason for them because the catalyst and the attack are disjointed. His anxiety is strangely stilted, slow to react; slow to burn, and usually he doesn’t notice anything was wrong until he’s on fire. Thor holds him anyway, even when Bruce knows that he must be beyond frustrating, mute and scrabbling. He moans in ineffable terror on the floor of one of those beautiful Asgardian halls. Thor is holding him. Thor is holding him. 

“I’ve got you,” Thor is saying when Bruce finds the capacity to process the words. “I’m right here, Banner. You’re okay and I won’t let anything happen to you.” His hands soothe Bruce’s back. He’s gentle. Bruce goes slack in his arms. 

Bruce sleeps in Thor’s bed that night and wakes up to the sunlight melting down like honey on Thor’s skin. 

  
  


They eat together on the hill, and then Thor asks Bruce if he would like to see something, and Bruce says  _ sure _ , and so Thor shows him the caves carved into the mountains. He takes Bruce deeper, deeper, shows him the stream that runs through these caves, its water translucent and shining. Bruce asks if it’s supposed to have any healing properties, and Thor laughs at him for assuming that sort of thing, but Bruce had just –  _ hoped _ . 

He tells Thor this last part, because he tells Thor everything now. 

“What do you want to be healed from?” Thor asks, reaching out to stroke Bruce’s cheek. Bruce doesn’t speak, and his breath catches as Thor begins to undo the buttons of his shirt. “It can heal you if you want it to. There’s a pool you can stand in.” 

The water is up to Bruce’s waist. 

He is scared to stand entirely naked in it, which he recognises has its irony, but this is his choice in a way that waking up confused and bare isn’t. Thor doesn’t push him, and keeps his trousers on, too. The water feels nice, cooling; Bruce could believe that it would heal him. He could believe that the whole of Asgard could heal him. It feels that way. Asgard is a place of recovery. 

Bruce is reminded of that as he walks from the farms into the city; this is a place that does not let itself fade away. Asgard is a people that support each other. If someone falls, another is there to pick them up. 

Bruce has got Thor. 

Thor touches him. 

It’s tentative, because it’s the morning after a panic attack and Bruce still feels _raw_ ; but he nods, first, then guides Thor’s hand. Thor is slow, achingly slow, building and building and building until the room is filled with Bruce’s breathless little gasps and he can feel himself getting drippingly wet. “Thor,” he pleads, voice quiet, shy. “ _Thor_.” 

“I’ve got you,” Thor says softly. 

Bruce cries out and arcs softly as he comes. Thor places his hand on Bruce’s chest and it flows with the rise and fall of his breathing as it slows. He feels strangely calm, even with the fluttering in his belly. 

He has a long shower that morning, and treats himself to using some of Thor’s conditioner; it smells of honey and is just as soft in Bruce’s hair, and he moisturises over the scars on his chest, and when he steps out he feels like he’s floating. 

He smells like Thor. When he’s sitting out in the garden eating some of the fruit he picked, even though Thor is somewhere else, doing something important, it feels as if Thor is sitting right there with him. 

It feels nice. 

  
  


The Bifrost is repaired, and Bruce desperately doesn’t want to leave, but he does. Everybody thought he was dead, he realises numbly as Tony hugs him tighter than he ever would otherwise. His apartment has been repossessed, and all of his things are gone, and even though he’s used to living with nothing but the contents of his own pockets it  _ stings _ . He feels the keen ache in his chest that is the lack of Thor; he keeps turning to say something and realising that there’s no-one with him now. He eats stacked pancakes at a diner and thinks about how Thor would love these. 

He orders more for takeaway. Tony asks him if he’s hungry or something. 

Bruce says he thinks he’s in love. The Bifrost takes him back, and Thor is treated to waffles for dinner, and the smile on his face is worth it. 

  
  


Here is how it happens: there is a knock on Bruce’s door. In a T-shirt from Earth and his boxers, he answers it, and then Thor is kissing him so hard he stumbles back a few paces, crashes into his bed. They kiss for what feels like hours, fast and slow and so tender Bruce feels as if his soul is being caressed and then back to desperate and sloppy. He breathes hard when he finally gets to break for it, bumping his forehead with Thor’s. He smiles because he can’t help it. 

Thor smells like honey. 

“I’m sorry if this is kind of forward, but you make me so happy,” Bruce admits. 

“What are you sorry for?” Thor asks, stroking his cheek, running the joints of his fingers in circles over Bruce’s stubble. “Don’t be sorry that I make you happy. And don’t be sorry that you told me.” He kisses Bruce again, so chaste that Bruce chases him for another. “I’m glad I make you happy. You make  _ me _ happy. I felt lost, and you were there.” 

Thor does him so slow that Bruce thinks he’s going to die, and he’s covered in a slick of sweat; they bath together, flicking water in each other’s faces and getting their legs tangled and Bruce –

Bruce doesn’t know how to articulate how this feels. 

He falls asleep in the bath, and wakes on his bed the next morning wrapped up in a robe; he’s still bleary when he steps out onto the balcony, where Thor is admiring the view. Things are starting to look good, the plans becoming a fully fledged reality. Thor’s imagination is pretty. 

Bruce holds his hand. “Do you think you could get used to me?” he asks. Thor hums and kisses his forehead. 

“I’d like to get to know you better,” he says with a smile. 


End file.
